Succession star Brian Cox has lent his voice and support to a crowdfunding campaign to save the Edinburgh Filmhouse. The drama series actor, who portrays corporate CEO Logan Roy in the Succession cast, made a video asking for help in saving the independent cinema.
“This is an appeal on behalf of the Edinburgh Filmhouse,” Cox says in the clip, posted on Instagram. “It has been in existence for quite a long time in Edinburgh. It is a needed, vital and necessary resource, particularly for the Edinburgh International Film Festival. If we lose the Filmhouse, we will lose a great source of our cultural life in Scotland.”
Cox goes on to say that besides showing the best movies in the “most extraordinary, wonderful circumstances”, it provides an enormous resource to young people looking to get into film and filmmaking. He ends by asking for people to contribute to a crowdfunding campaign that hopes to buy the building that once housed the theatre.
The Edinburgh Filmhouse suddenly shut recently, when parent company Centre for Moving Image, went into administration. Since opening in 1978, the Filmhouse had been home to the Edinburgh International Film Festival, an event that previously ran annually since 1947.
Some 107 jobs were lost between the cinema shutting and the festival stopping, both futures now in question. Another cinema in Aberdeen, the Belmont Filmhouse, also closed. A report by The Scotsman stated that CMI touted a “perfect storm of external factors” that contributed to the sudden closures.
The Save Filmhouse Cinema crowdfunder is currently looking for £2 million in order to buy the building, thus saving it from being bought and being turned into another kind of venue. As it stands, the property is due to go to auction as a way of settling outstanding debts. The hope here is to prevent that from happening and create a new era for the institution.
“There is a crowdfunder which I will contribute to myself,” Cox adds. “I am asking people to put their hands in their pockets – it doesn’t matter how little or how much – and try and save the Filmhouse.”
A GoFundMe is also ongoing to provide financial assistance to all the staff impacted by these closures. You can contribute to the staff GoFundMe here, and the Filmhouse crowdfunder here. Check out our guide to Succession season 4 for Cox’s return to television.